Holy Crap! Well I must say that was the toughest three miles I have ever ran. Turns out the start was about a quarter mile into the mine, the surface was not as clean as the entrance. In fact it was like rubber soaked damp cement. Must be from traffic in and out. Here is where the fun begins. I round the first turn about a quarter mile in and say to myself " you have got to be freaking kidding me!" It was fist size and smaller limestone rock, or maybe some slag too, then patches of dirt littered with small stones. This continued the entire race until your loops brought you back to the rubbery crap cement. Then the last quarte mile out the mine on good clean cement (like in the photos I saw, lol). The only words that come to mind is MEAT GRINDER. It took me 33 minutes to get it done. But it was fun in a sick sort of way, and they are including me in an article of the local paper, so thats kind of cool. I really thought it was going to be cement the whole way, and I never asked anyone about it. It feels good to overcome a challenge like that, especially one that takes you by suprise. Iwill say this, I had SPEED at the end, would have like to seen what I could do on a good surface. Thanks for all the advice and letting me ramble on a bit.Aubrey